On a bright, blustery day at Torrance House Arena title chasing Carrick came up from Maybole looking to for the five point victory that would support their bid for the top spot. East Kilbride (EK), on the other hand, were about to play their final match of what has been a difficult season with a victory that might have lifted them up from second bottom of the table. Given the relative differences in the forms of these two team over the season the bookmakers would have had Carrick as the winners and had it not been f or a couple of late mistakes by EK they would have been counting their losses.

Carrick started strongly putting EK into defensive mode. The defence held out for 6 minutes but a gap in the wall allowed Carrick in for the opening try which was duly converted. EK's response came soon after. Following an assault on the Carrick line the ball was spread out left for Craig MacKenzie to open the home team's account. The try was unconverted. Carrick bounced back to add to their lead with a second, converted try 18 minutes into the half. This was followed seven minutes later when EK's Harris McCaig crossed in the right hand corner to narrow the gap to 4 points. With the first half moving in to time added on, Carrick extended their lead with an unconverted try.

Trailing by 9 points as they entered the second half EK set about redressing the situation. A try by Ross McKeown converted by Grant Dryburgh was followed by a successful penalty conversion, also from Grant Dryburgh's boot. This gave EK a slender, one point, lead with 30 minutes of normal time remaining. With the game entering its final quarter Grant Dryburgh added to his personal tally for the day with two tries, one of which he converted. Carrick cut this lead with a try 30 minutes into the half before Grant Dryburgh converted a penalty to give EK a precious two score advantage as the game entered its final minutes. With the crowd, and Thunders (Chris McLellan), urging the team to play simple rugby to defend their lead mistakes, possibly brought on by the intense nature of the game followed. Carrick's kick off, following the EK score, was not gathered cleanly and from the turned over possession they mounted an attack which provided the try that brought them to within two points of EK's score. With the game well into time added on EK were penalised giving Carrick the opportunity to kick for 3 points to win the game. Their kick made no mistake with the conversion leaving EK to rue another game that got away.

Although they came out on the losing side this was one of EK's better performances. Their defence was sound and set pieces, scrum and line-out worked well. Young players, Harris McCaig, Logan Cairney-Paul, Euan McFarlane and Matthew McGill all showed up well. We look forward to seeing them, and other graduates from the EKRFC Academy, making an impact during the coming seasons. On the day our forwards showed up well with both Bens, Walters and McLean, Juan Lee Hodgkinson and Eddie Beaton taking the game to the opposition with rumbustious running while Ross McKeown and Roddy Beaton took their turn at putting Carrick on the defensive. In the back division play was much more controlled than has been the case for a while as a result of which turnovers were few and far between. On a day when EK fronted up well it is difficult to single out one player for the accolade of player of the match. This was, however, Chris (Thunders) McLellan's final game so, with 22 years as a faithful club member and 333 first team appearances he is not just player of the match, his unstinted loyalty to the club both on the the field and off it makes him the player of the era.

With the season over we can only look back on what might have been. Over the season EK has accumulated 5 losing bonus points - i.e. points gained by coming within a single score of the oppositions' totals. Some of these losses came in the closing minutes of games, as was the case on Saturday. Had these games been won we would have accumulated 15 more league points giving us a total of 44 points and placing us 5th in the division. For now, we must prepare for, and look forward to, season 2026/2027 when we should take the field fit and determined to make an impact on our division.